REFERENCE 1: A Rough, Probably Still Incomprehensible Guide on How to Send Someone to the Shadow Realm
Welcome to Yu-Gi-Oh in 2006!
This will be a primer on all the terms and basic mechanics of the card game, but more detailed aspects will be left to the videos. Like a lot of things, it's better learned through experience.
Read on to learn how you too can be allowed to draw 2 cards from your deck and maybe even send your opponent to the Shadow Realm!
Also do note that while a lot of this carries up to modern rulings, not all of it does.
Also some amount of
relevant tutorializing can be found on Wikipedia.
- BASE MECHANICS -
Decks are from 40-60 in size.
(It used to be an unlimited maximum before, but some blokes started to bring a stack of hundreds of cards to get this rule changed.)
Each player has 8000 life points because inflated numbers are cool.
There is no Mana/Energy system in the game, so gameplay is frequently more aggressive and "explosive".
You can have only 3 copies of the exact same card in a deck, further limited by the current banlist.
Forbidden = can't play it
Limited = you only get 1
Semi-Limited = you only get 2
The game is broken up into 6 phases and taken in turns:
-Draw Phase-
* The turn player draws 1 card from the top of their deck, then the phase ends.
-Standby Phase-
* This phase only exists to resolve certain card effects. You do so, then this phase ends.
-Main Phase 1-
* The majority of the game happens here. You can normal summon 1 Monster, set or play Spells, and set or activate Traps.
-Battle Phase-
* The other most important phase, you can declare attacks with your Monsters only during this phase. You cannot Normal Summon, but your quick-play spell and trap play is unrestricted. You CANNOT enter this phase on the first turn of the game.
-Main Phase 2-
* This is just like Main Phase 2, but later. This is used to make plays after doing battle. You skip this step if you do not enter the Battle Phase.
-End Phase-
* You pass turn control to your opponent and they start from the top.
*
If you have more than 6 cards in your hand, you must discard cards until it equals 6.
DEFAULT WIN CONDITIONS:
* Immediately, when your opponent's life points are less than or equal to 0.
* If your opponent enters the Draw Phase but has no cards left in deck to draw. This is frequently referred to as "deck out".
THE FIELD:
A player's side of the field is broken up into a few zones:
MONSTER CARD ZONE - You get 5 of these in a row across the center of the playing field. Monsters are played here.
SPELL & TRAP CARD ZONE - You get 5 of these, situated just beneath your Monster Card Zone. Spells & Traps are played here.
THE DECK - yep
THE GRAVEYARD - This is where spent cards go most of the time. You can look through either player's at any time. Abbreviated as GY in the modern setting. This is located just above the Deck.
THE BANISHED ZONE- Cards rarely go here because of effects. It's generally harder to do stuff with this, which is why it was called Removed From Play before they made less difficult to mess with. This is hanging off the board to the right of the GY.
EXTRA DECK -
the bane of modern yugioh a spot for monsters that specifically don't go in the main deck. It's on the opposite side of the field from the Deck, in line with the S&T zones.
FIELD SPELL CARD ZONE - Where a specific kind of Spell Card sits and watches the duel happen, either in superiority or social anxiety. This is located just above the Extra Deck.
CARD STATES:
There's only 2! Pokemon TCG this isn't.
Face-up: The card is face-up.
Face-down/Set: The card is face-down and your opponent does not know what it is. Playing a card face-down is referred to as "Setting it", and "Set" is frequently used to refer to face-down Spells and Traps. Most importantly, a face-down card has NO EFFECTS and no defining features aside from what zone it's placed in.
Monster? Spells and Traps? Summons?! I'll explain those now, I couldn't really talk about the turn order without doing so.
- THE THREE MAIN CARD TYPES -
SPELLS:
Originally known as Magic Cards in early releases of the game (quickly resolved by... "attention" from Magic the Gathering), Spell Cards are green. Provided you meet the activation requirements, there's no limit on activation during your Main Phases or Battle Phase.
Spell Cards have types that modify their behaviour.
*Normal: Any Spell without a type. They are sent to the GY after their effects resolve.
*Continuous: The card remains on the field once played, only going to the GY by a card effect. Designated by an infinity symbol in the upper right.
*Field Spell: Continuous's weird cousin, these sit in their own zone, usually providing passive effects. Only one can exist on the entire field at the time, playing a new one simply sends the other to the GY. This is the only time this unspoken "overwrite" mechanic happens. Designated by a 4 pointed star in the upper right.
*Equip Spells: Also like Continuous, these stay on the field, but are attached to face-up monsters. They are destroyed when the equipped is removed from the field in any way. Designated by a cross/plus in the upper right.
*Ritual Spells: Used only for a certain weird monster card type. We'll talk about it then. Designated by a flame in the upper right.
*Quick-Play Spells: Can be activated in reaction to other effects or mechanics from your hand on your turn, or set and played like Trap Cards. Designated by a lightning-bolt in the upper right. The only spells usable during the Battle Phase.
Speaking of traps....
TRAPS:
Purplish-red cards that are cards with powerful reactive effects, but different from Spells in one particular way:
Traps must first be "Set" in a Spell & Trap Card Zone and an End Phase must pass before it can be activated. This makes them more vulnerable to being destroyed and countered than say, an MtG Instant. (a number of modern traps can be played from the hand so who are we really kidding at this point)
Trap cards also have types.
*Normal: Any Trap without a type. They are sent to the GY after their effects resolve.
*Continuous Trap: Acts the same as Continuous Spells, but even more redundant because sometimes their effects act like Equip Spells. They even have the same infinity symbol.
*Counter Trap: Luckily, I can explain this without getting into the tangent that is Spell Speed. Notably, Counter Traps can only be reacted to by other Counter Traps. Designated by U-turning arrow in the upper left.
Both Spells and Traps have an
Effect, the details of those is where Yu-Gi-Oh gets really complicated, so we'll save that for later.
MONSTERS:
The bread and butter of the game, these are your weird/cool creatures. In the modern game, these are probably anime waifus. I chose to talk about these last as they have the most on them.
These cards have:
A Level, (indicated by the number of stars at the top.)
An Attribute (EARTH, WIND, FIRE, WATER, LIGHT, DARK- the little colored icon in the upper right)
A Type (Beast, Spellcaster, Machine, Dragon, etc...)
An ATK and DEF value (listed in the lower right)
And maybe an Effect, and if not, flavor text (listed in the center bottom block.) Without an effect, monsters are referred to as Normal Monsters.
(The least important aspect to note here is Attribute and Type. These are just categories that may be used as per a card effect ("Equip to a Warrior type monster", "Banish 1 DARK monster", etc.).)
-How To Play Them-
Monsters have to be Summoned. There are two types of summons, Normal Summons and Special Summons.
You can Normal Summon once per turn from your hand during either Main Phase on your turn, but only once. They are either summoned in face-up Attack Position, or set in face-down Defense position- we'll talk about those positions in a minute.
A monster whose Level is higher than 4 must be Tribute Summoned. These are referred to as Tribute Monsters. A Tribute Summon is a Normal Summon for all intents and purposes, and counts for your one per turn. (face-up Attack and face-down Defense as well.)
Tributing is done by sending a number of your monsters on the field to the GY equal to the number of tributes required. 5 and 6 stars require one tribute, 7 and higher requires two tributes. Yes, it really is that uneven.
A Special Summon is any summon done as part of a card's effect, and there isn't an explicit limit on how many you can do. As these do not consume your once per turn Normal Summon and there is no restriction on how many can be done, they can result in big swings in regards of who's winning.
And if you're in modern Yu-Gi-Oh, this all you do like 5 times a turn on both turns.
Special Summoned monsters are summoned in face-up Attack Position, or
face-up Defense Position.
On top of all this, there are 4 card types of monster:
Normal (pale yellow, no effect), (Gemini Elf above)
Effect (dark orange, has effect),
Fusion (purple, sits in the Extra Deck only to be summoned from there by specific cards)
Ritual (blue, can only be summoned by the effect of Ritual Spell cards.)
The summons of Fusion and Ritual monsters are Ritual Summons and Fusion Summons specifically, but are also Special Summons for all intents and purposes. They won't be too relevant for most of the playthrough as
most of them are hot garbage they don't show up too much, but here you are anyways. There are opportunities to use them though.
Ritual and Fusion monsters without effects are not treated as Normal, they are counted as Non-Effect Monsters, but this also isn't relevant to any serious play in this time period.
Now with all that nonsense covered, let's talk the two most important aspects of monsters, ATK and DEF and how that involves combat.
- COMBAT, THE BATTLE PHASE, AND HOW TO SEND YOUR OPPONENT TO THE SHADOW REALM -
First thing of note,
there is no summoning sickness. Monsters can attack the turn they're summoned.
Monsters are either in Attack Position (turned upright) or Defense Position (turned to the side).
Monsters can declare one attack per turn and can only do so in attack position. If your opponent controls no monsters, you can declare a Direct Attack which damages your opponent equal to the monster's ATK.
If your opponent does control a monster, you have to attack one of those instead if you choose to attack.
Attacking another attack position monster is ATK vs. ATK. The one with the highest wins,
destroying the loser and sending it to the GY. The difference in ATK is dealt as damage to the player who controlled the losing monster. Equal ATK values tie and destroy both monsters, no damage being taken on either side.
Attacking a defense position monster is ATK vs. DEF, highest wins. The controller of the defending monster takes no damage from the battle if their monster loses and it is destroyed sent to the GY as normal if so. If the attacker loses, the attacker's controller takes damage equal to the difference, but their monster is not destroyed.
So:
ATK > ATK- Loser takes damage, card is destroyed
ATK > DEF- Loser takes no damage, card is destroyed
ATK < DEF- Loser takes damage, card is not destroyed
Hopefully that shortens it up.
So with that complex mess of phases, card types, and rulings, you now know how to properly beat your opponent to
death taking a vacation to the Shadow Realm with imaginary creatures.
You might be somewhat overwhelmed, and if you are, I'm so sorry for what's coming next:
- THE UNHOLY, LITIGIOUS MESS THAT ARE YU-GI-OH EFFECTS -
(Note: This card with text made for ants will not be appearing in this game.)
Let's address the Flying Elephant in the room. A lot of the cards in this game are their own minature rulebooks. It's like you're playing UNO but there's 3000 different reversal cards. Except before 2011, the meanings are vague as hell.
A lot of them you just learn by doing, so I can't really teach that. A lot of the effect mechanics are highly specific (one may say "target 1 monster and destroy it" while another says "destroy 1 monster") and this is important for the reactionary effects of the game.
Explaining the keywords would probably make you suffer a tragic death by overinformation, so it's better if I just explain how effects work in the most general sense. If someone wants to go hard on explaining it all, go ahead, but I won't be doing it.
Effects may have any of the following: Cost, Activation Requirement, the effect itself, and a Limit.
We'll do this by looking at Abyss Soldier.
"Once per turn: You can discard 1 WATER monster to the Graveyard to target 1 card on the field; return it to the hand."
A
Cost must be paid before the card is even considered activated. A cost can be a lot of things like discarding cards, tributing monsters, paying life points (which is different from taking damage). Powerful cards often have heavy costs as if your opponent counters the effect, you paid cost and got nothing for t.
In this case, the cost of Abyss Soldier's activated effect is to discard 1 WATER monster card to the Graveyard.
Next is
Activation Requirement. A card may specify a requirement to it's activation. This can be pretty much be any mechanic, from attack declaration, drawing cards, having a specific card on field, life points, even the activation of other effects.
This raises the topic of
Missed Timing. Effect that say "when" something happens, have to be activated immediately after or it no longer counts, such as if another card's effect activate first. This doesn't apply if the card says "if" something happens- welcome to Yu-Gi-Oh, folks.
(At least, that's the short version of it.)
Regardless... Abyss Soldier doesn't really have a requirement, but one can interpret the act of targeting 1 card to be one. Although it itself will always be a valid target,
(unless it's been given targeting protection, a situation at which I don't honestly know what happens. I think this isn't technically a real Activation Requirement, so it just blanks.)
The
Effect is what happens when the card is activated (as it is now considered to be). This can be pretty much anything.
So, you know all those strongly worded rules I've given you thus far? Just know that they can be defied at any time thanks to card effects. Skipping phases, removing monster effects, Normal Summoning twice or more per turn, removing your ability to play cards, even monsters that act like spells or traps that act like monsters.
There is no base mechanic that cannot be overwritten, no rule that is permanently unchanged- these monsters go back into the deck instead of the GY, these let you Tribute your opponent's monsters... Really, all it takes is for Konami to have too wild a night with their rumored yakuza investors to print a card that says you can physically eat your cards to gain life points.
...That card doesn't exist yet, and Yu-Gi-Oh's rule defiance is historically far more tame than Magic's stuff like inception duels and Iron Star, but just know that lots of effects in the game deny can defy the mechanics and rules I discussed in earlier in this guidetorial glossary. You can append "unless an effect says otherwise" to nearly every sentence.
If the effect is not negated or invalidated by another card's effect, it goes through. In the case of ol' Abyss Soldier, it's returning the targeted card to the owner's hand.
Lastly,
the Limit. Some cards can only activate a limited number of times per turn. This isn't very common in this era of Yu-Gi-Oh, which is why a lot of cards can create godawful loops or combos that get them put on a banlist.
Abyss Soldier's effect specifies once per turn, so that's it.
(Although in this case, it's once per turn per instance of this card. A second Abyss Soldier can still use its effect, or if the same Abyss Soldier is removed from the field or flipped face down then up in the same turn, it can use it again. This is why I said don't worry yourself with the details.)
SPELL SPEED AND CHAINS
Effects activated in response to one another form a Chain. The first card is always Chain Link 1, the next Chain Link 2, etc... When cards are finished being chained, the effects are resolved top down.
Effects can only chain to other effects with an equal or lower spell speed. (Yes, "Spell" Speed, even if they're traps or monsters.)
Spell Speed 3 is exclusively Counter Traps, such as Solemn Judgement here.
Spell Speed 2 is Traps, Quick-Play Spells, and a rare few Continuous traps and monsters.
Spell Speed 1 is literally everything else.
The weird last thing to note about all this are
Ignition Effects. These are specifically monster effects you manually have to activate during your main phase. Due to a quirk of old ruling, you can immediately activate their effect as Chain Link 1 before your opponent gets to react to the monster's summon.
This mostly just lets you get off annoying effects even if your opponent's trap destroys the monster anyways.
So, have you absorbed all that? If not, well, I don't blame you. Yu-Gi-Oh is hard to explain and I can't say this was the best explanation possible.
Just ask in the thread if there's something you want to know but otherwise not explained in the guide.
Or just pretend like you know what's happening, I won't judge.
Also, this duel I showed some screenshots of took
23 turns. Now that's a prolonged duel.
)
